Friday, December 31, 2010

Yo Internets, I did it! December Daily has been pwned! Tomorrow or the next day, I'll go through the old comments and see who came the closest to guessing 0 as the number of days I'd miss out on posting this month. That optimistic soul will become the proud owner of her very own Starbucks ornament--if she is willing to email her address. I wouldn't be offended if she isn't, I know I must seem like a complete looney bird. But who knows, maybe she's willing to walk on the wild side. We'll see.

So anyway...December 31st. December Done. Last day of 2010. Twenty 10. Over. Crazy right? So I think for this double final post, I'll share with you the 2011 resolutions of my children--or what I imagined they'd be if they had any idea what a resolution was.

#1--Chase and Amaya do hereby resolve to study hard and continue the strengthening of the grey matter inside their little noggins.

#2: Chase does hereby resolve to continue working toward his ultimate goal of becoming a 4 year old rock star.

#3 Amaya does hereby resolve to start her own company by the age of 3. Her latest brainstorm is a cleaning service that performs show tunes while dusting. I'm sure it will be a hit.

As for my resolutions? Well I'm still ironing out the details there. I'll get back to you on that, deal?

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Sometimes I do. Playing, learning, hanging out with your friends. Life just doesn't get much better than that. So today I thought I'd take us back to those happy days by having our only little impromptu Family Show & Share. We'll start with Chase:

He is most proud of his Batman nightlight. Now you might be thinking that this was either a Hanukkah or Christmas present, but you'd be wrong. It is a "My sister got a Tinkerbell nightlight in her stocking and now I need to have a cool nightlight too" present from his father. That came two days ago--3 days after the toy explosion that was known as Christmas. So when the subject of the spoiled, pampered nature of my children comes up, I will be hereby directing all inquiries to Drew. Deservedly so, wouldn't you agree?

Amaya would like to show you her Elton John sunglasses that were also in her stocking.

Santa really likes shopping at the dollar store, and my daughter really likes to accessorize so all in all I'd say things worked out well.

And what does the man of the house have to offer us today?

Well, it just so happens that Drew wishes to share the story of how he was the Sneaky Mole Man Villain and was subsequently cornered, subdued and apprehended by Captain America & Bat Girl. Mama watched from a safe, secure distance. Yet, I was still close enough to hear both children call their father "an abomination" several times. I'd never get away with that let me tell you.

Finally, I have two items I'd like to share with you. Yes, I know the rule is one show & share item. But rules don't apply to me. I'm special. Just go with it. Please?

So anyway, slacker Mellon finally got around to registering Amaya for the winter ballet session. The website only takes Visa & MasterCard, so since I happen to be an AmEx girl, I had to plumb the depths of my wallet/card holder thingy to find my MasterCard which basically meant that I just dumped the entire mess out onto the table. This is just a peak at what I was hiding in there.

That card on the left is the key card from the Iron Horse Hotel in Milwaukee. I saved it because I think it's a beautiful photograph. I love how hotels are moving toward the artsy key card. Did you know that some people collect them like stamps? Sounds like a good collection to have since it means that you get to have a vacation in order to add to your stash. I'm going to move mine to the inspiration board in my scrap room so that I can actually see it once in awhile.

All those other cards? Yea those are the iTunes Pick of the Week from Starbucks. I always grab one when I'm there, but obviously have a problem remembering to redeem them. So I'll be doing that tonight just as soon as I'm done typing up this post. Which is good, because I'd appreciate some new tunes when I find myself up close & personal with this demon again.

I'd like you to meet my arch nemesis: The Evil Cross Trainer. After training today, Jeanne stuck me on this thing and then ran away to practice for the new Body Pump release, so I didn't even have my earphones with me to zone out to some tunes. Instead I exchanged texts with Molly about making chili in her new dutch oven. Have you ever tried to text while you're on one of these things? Comedy hour. With all the typos and ridiculous autocorrects the iPhone insists on making, it took me 5 minutes to tell her to let the chili simmer over low heat for 3 hours. But you know what, those were five minutes that I wasn't staring at the clock, so it's all good. If anyone wants me to text her next time I'm stuck alone on one of these suckers, you just let me know. I'd be good for a chuckle or two at least.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Chase: I forget. I can't remember how I'm doing. Too many questions Mama.

*Amaya spent the entire day at school in dry underwear. Upon arriving home she proceeded to have two accidents.

*I am going to the store tomorrow to buy more girls' 4T underroos.

*I finished DeChristmastizing the house. You can thank the 40° temperatures for this. Otherwise the outside might have stayed lit in all its holiday glory until April. March at the earliest.

*I use this website as a cheat sheet when I have to add special characters like degree symbols to blog posts. Shhh. Don't tell.

*I think Haikubes might be one of my all time favorite Hanukkah presents. Words. On cubes. Does it get any better? I doubt it.

*After our Christmas visit, I've been thinking a bit about my brother and the fact that he's a man now. It's hard to wrap my brain around that because in my mind he still looks like this 90% of the time.

*I've decided I'm ok with him growing up and stuff--as long as he remembers that I'm still the big sister. That means that every once in awhile he has to let me me tackle him to the ground and tickle him until he can't breathe just like the good ole days. That's not too much to ask for is it?

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Do you want to know a secret about me? I'm stubborn. Ok, so some of you are laughing hysterically right now because you're thinking this isn't really a secret. But I think the secret part lies in just how stubborn I am. For instance, despite the fact that I am so bored by this whole December Daily thing that I want to stab my eyes repeatedly with a sharpened candy cane, I am trudging on because it is a goal that I set for myself, and I can't think of a single excuse that my headstrong nature will buy to get me out of it. So here we go again assuming anyone is still around to read it. Which is doubtful since I imagine y'all are just as bored as I am.

Are you lucky enough to start your morning with an impromptu concert by two highly (un)skilled pianists? No? Well, then you might not want to look at this picture then--I wouldn't want your jealousy to flare up or anything.

Today my partner-in-gym-crime was under the weather so I was forced to get my cardio in on a boring cross training machine by myself. That meant there was no one to gossip and laugh with about stupid products like shake weights and pajamagrams. Those 60 minutes felt like time spent in purgatory though I'm not sure what sin I was serving them for--there are so many to choose from but my money is on the half a red velvet cake I ate over Christmas. In an effort to keep myself from watching as each second ticked by on the clock, I engaged in the following activities:

I surveyed my fellow gym goers and graded them on whether or not I thought their attire was appropriate.

I watched MSNBC and learned that it's possible that I could go to jail if I read Drew's email without his permission.

I chatted about the weather with a lovely old lady on the rower thingy in front of me. Except that she talked really quietly and I could hardly hear her over the whirring of the equipment

I played games with myself by constantly changing the level all around on the machine. I call it modified interval training by Mellon. I plan to patent the technique just as soon as I find someone to fill out all of the paper work for me.

Still, the time DRAGGED. Yet 60 minutes in Body Combat flies by and leaves me wanting more. Einstein was on to something with that whole relativity thing.

As if I hadn't been tortured enough for one day, I came home to do the dreaded chore of DeChristmastizing the house.

I strongly dislike this particular chore. I think I may have taken my ire out on a helpless woodland creature or two.

So sad. I tried and tried to come up with some use for a headless deer, but was able to produce nada. So I passed that buck right on into the trash. I do feel a bit guilty about this.

Chase's music lesson was moved to Tuesday nights, so our new ritual will be to grab a quick Mama/Chase dinner before class.

Except that Mama wasn't really feeling Chase's choice of McDonald's, so she chose a liquid meal in the form of a latte at Starbucks instead. While I was there, this cute girl in a green coat looked at me and said, "Hi Laura" but I hadn't the foggiest idea who she was. I felt so rotten. So I smiled and said hello, and generally pretended like I knew her too. After she left, I turned my attention to my book: The Power of Body Language by Tonya Reiman and quickly realized that the body language signals my subconscious was sending betrayed my lie which made me feel like an even bigger arse. So the lesson here is this: don't go to Starbucks for dinner; eat the quarter-pounder with cheese instead.

Monday, December 27, 2010

I never thought I'd see this day. Or rather that this day would see a blog post, yet here I am on the 27th day of December staying strong on the whole daily posting thing. Though I do have to tell you that in the month of January, you'll be lucky if you get a post a week. I believe they call this a recovery period.

So yea. Monday. And even worse, the Monday after Christmas. That's a whole lot of boring right there: clean up, restore a bit of order, laundry, groceries, and not even a gym date to break the monotony up. Add into that the final meal with the Gparents, and you've pretty much set yourself up for a day spent in the doldrums.

Then after the kids went off school, I contemplated perhaps deChristmasifying the house. I stumbled into the dining room and was met with this:

Yea, that mess of stuff has been sitting there since I Christmasified the house at the beginning of the month. I never got around to putting these unused pieces away. Martha has taken back my Quality Homekeeper's card. Having been put face to face with my own sloth, I decided to wallow in it one more day. I'll tackle the dismantling of the decorations that had the honor of making it off of the dining room table tomorrow. Maybe.

We finally wound the day down with a little piano practice for Chase.

It's like the blind leading the blind here. Sometimes I think that I dreamed having those years of piano lessons. Musical aptitude = nil. And so does this post, really.

And I got a gift too. Now how is she going to tell me not to eat chocolate after this? Obviously, the idea confuses me as evidenced by my ridiculous face. But if you can pull your eyes away from that silliness for a moment, take a look at the sweater my daddy got me for Christmas. Suh-weet.

Then finally at last Uncle Rob and Lindsay arrived!

This made me happy because I've been waiting all day for Lindsay's Red Velvet Cake.

And it really made Chase happy because he'd been waiting all day for Uncle Rob to come put together his Criss Cross Crash track.

Being the engineer that he is, it was not long before he had that toy whipped into shape!

Friday, December 24, 2010

Oh Bernard, we're going to miss you and your mischievous ways. But we're oh so excited for Santa to come to our house tonight. And how do we show excitement? Why we tackle our sibling of course.

But at least Chase's hair looks good while he's at the bottom of that sister mush. See his new haircut?

And then the excitement hit a new high when Grandma and Grandpa arrived at last from the 'Wood.

After which much mayhem and silliness ensued.

But not for Mama because she had to make the Christmas Eve chili.

And it was good...

Just ask Mr. Poindexter here.

Or little Ms. Neat & Tidy here:

After dinner, we listened to Christmas carols, played Snow Monster and made a lovely holiday craft.

Then it was time to leave cookies & milk for Santa. It's kind of a miracle that any sweets were left on the plate though because every time we turned around, Amaya was cramming another one in her mouth. I finally distracted her by letting them use a marker to sign their names to Santa's letter. Tricky Mama, I am.

After observing my daughter and all of her sugar intake, I did the only logical thing--I sent her up for bath and bed. But there was no rest for the Mellon--Santa required my assistance since apparently the elves really are on strike. So the big man in red just dumped all of the presents in our family room for me to arrange under the tree. And by me, I mean Grandma.

Santa also forgot to assemble a few things, so I had to do that too. And by me, I mean Grandpa.

Of course, the problem there is that G-Pa got a little distracted by the toy guitar.